The Frontiers of Democracy: Challenges in the West, the East and the Third World by Robert Pinkney

Author:Robert Pinkney [Pinkney, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351146661
Google: vJxADwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-11-28T09:23:23+00:00

Civil Society and Citizens

If the nominally democratic political structure is paralleled by a structure based on patronage, corruption and the flouting of the law by the wealthy, a case could also be made for the existence of a parallel model which actually carries democracy further than the formal structure, rather than negating it. In this view, economic and political liberalisation can be exploited not only by elites to corner the nation's resources, but by a wider society to empower the people where they had previously been passive recipients of state edicts and state goods and services. Tripp speaks of a 'second politics' emerging with the creation of voluntary neighbourhood groups and rural grassroots movements that produce alternative institutions of political decision making and political obligation. She cites examples of new organisations and networks for self-reliance and cooperation in activities such as farming, fishing and policing (Tripp 1997: 201. See also Pinkney 2001: 130-34). 'Social organisations and institutions have begun to assert their autonomy from party and state control', she argues, noting cases such as the ability of a large independent women's organisation to resist government attempts to co-opt it, and then de-register it, and the success of media workers in rejecting a Bill which would have severely curtailed the freedom of the press (Tripp 2000: 203-12; Tripp 1997: 60, 73-4, 202).

The whole climate of political and economic liberalisation certainly created new openings in civil society. Political liberalisation permitted the pursuit of causes which would previously been frowned on, and vigorous campaigning which might previously have fallen foul of the hegemony of the ruling party, while economic liberalisation left wider scope for voluntary development projects and welfare provision. The number of registered NGOs jumped from 163 in 1990 to 2,000 by the year 2000 (Chachage in Bujra and Adejumobi 2003: 143). It had become fashionable for Western donors to want to involve 'civil society' in economic development. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) programme's poverty reduction strategy involved inputs from 53 representatives of NGOs, and NGOs have sometimes used the additional political space to press demands which the donors would have preferred to ignore. 98 NGOs created the Tanzanian Coalition on Debt and Development to press for total debt cancellation (Kelsall 2002: 602-3). NGOs have claimed credit for a variety of legal and policy changes, covering areas as diverse as rape, land ownership, freedom of the press, and the abandonment of environmentally damaging projects such as the diversion of rivers and a prawn farming project in the Rufiji Delta. Even when they have not succeeded, they have given greater prominence to issues such as the rights of women, children and the poor, civil liberties and conservation (see especially Journalists Environmental Association of Tanzania n/d; Mutakyahwa in FES 2003: 92-3; Tango 2002; Shivji in Semboja et al. 2002: 101-18).

While the enlarged role of NGOs has been helped by a greater governmental tolerance of pluralism, dissent and diversity, it has also been helped by a longstanding tradition of participation. We have noted that

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